Workflow Automation

With the Workflow Automation engine, ELEMENTS is bringing new and exciting functionality to your company. Quickly automate complex chains of tasks, as well as improving simple everyday tasks - all whilst keeping track of the progress and accountability.

Consistent efficiency

Free yourself up from repetitive tasks

Even a small-scale Workflow Automation can save a lot of time, but it is the larger ones that can have a huge impact on the efficiency of your company. One click can replace a whole list of complex tasks and keep everyone involved notified of the progress. Furthermore, automating your workflows will drastically reduce the chances of human error.

A flexible time saviour

A wide range of tasks at your disposal

The Workflow Automation engine allows for a wide range of file system operations such as moving, copying, deleting or syncing files as well as Media Library control, automated transcoding and notifications via E-mail, Slack or via the ELEMENTS Client. Need more flexibility? Simply run custom Python and Shell scripts as a step in the workflow.

User permissions

Execute powerful workflows with a single click

Users with sufficient permissions can trigger workflows in one of three ways: Directly in the Workflow Automation tab, comfortably in the Media Library or by simply right-clicking any number of assets in the Windows Explorer or MacOS Finder and starting the Job. Workflows can just as easily be scheduled to automatically run on set intervals or at a specific point in time.

Security uncompromised

Bridge security zones

Workflows can be set to enable one-time write permissions to certain locations. This way, users can move or copy files into the archive without actually having write access permissions for the archive location. Furthermore, the Workflow Automation engine can be used to conduct secure file exchanges between separate storage systems.

Improve accountability

Keep track of the work done by using notifications or task logs

The Active Tasks tab offers an overview of all finished and running jobs as well as information about the user starting the job and its starting time. Should the task finish with a warning or an error, the reason for this will be listed in the log. Notifications via E-mail, Slack or via the ELEMENTS Client can keep you informed about the workflow status at any point.

Workflow Automation

Decrease work, increase efficiency

Powerful workflow automation engine for everyone

As seasoned video professionals, we have firsthand experience and understanding of the indisputable benefits that proficient workflow automation can offer. The mechanisation of everyday tasks can provide a huge boost in productivity whilst simultaneously increasing reliability and accuracy far beyond the capacity of human intervention. Workflow automation takes charge of repetitive and tedious tasks, eliminating the need for human involvement and allowing the user to focus more on creative thinking

Up to now, the configuration of workflow automation was seen by many as a daunting and intimidating task, one reserved primarily for IT specialists and people with in-depth coding knowledge. ELEMENTS rewrites the rulebook here, by providing a smart, powerful and easy-to-use task manager that enables simple, straightforward and painless workflow automation, with little to no coding skills required. Choose from a variety of pre-defined actions to be executed – or create your own with a few simple mouse clicks.

There are many reasons to consider using workflow automation to help you get the job done. Due to consistent and accurate results, workflow automation can help you reduce costs and error points. Any number of predetermined tasks can be chained together and started through a single click, therefore improving workplace efficiency significantly. Our workflow automation engine also helps you improve internal communication through the use of Custom Fields, automated E-mails as well as Slack notifications.

The access to the workflow automation engine can be custom set for either an individual user or a whole group. Depending on the permissions, the user will be able to see existing tasks, start or create and manage the tasks. User permissions also allow the possibility of hiding the automation engine altogether. The Active Tasks menu displays all running and finished tasks alongside the starting time and the user that has started the task.

If wanted, custom variables such as a user, date or text field can be required when starting a job and passed to any step in the workflow. An example use case for this function is choosing the user that has approved a certain asset before starting a backup job. An email or a Slack notification can be set up to inform specific users of this action as well as that of the decision making user.

In combination with the Media Library, ELEMENTS workflow automation engine can be deployed to send automatic email notifications to certain team members to keep them informed about newly arrived media assets, recently finished rough-cuts and the like. You define the event trigger – and the action that you want ELEMENTS workflow automation engine to execute. This kind of communication is accurate, reliable and consistent, thereby minimizing the potential for misunderstandings and errors.

Understanding the fact that projects tend to evolve and change throughout their lifespans has led us to create the workflow automation engine to offer maximum flexibility. Tasks can be added, edited or removed from your workflow at any point to adapt to your projects changing needs. Additionally, the workflow automation engine also offers the possibility of adding custom Python or Shell script tasks, therefore allowing you to expand the already wide variety of offered tasks.

The possibilities are endless: take advantage of ELEMENTS workflow automation engine to reduce the manual effort of housekeeping and maintenance by defining time-based copy or transfer jobs, reordering of still frame sequences or hot folder-based execution of file conversion. Keeping your system neat and well-sorted has never been easier. All the above mentioned options on how to put ELEMENTS workflow automation engine to work are just examples – define and create your own workflow automation processes that work for you.

Yes! Workflows in the Media Library, our optional Media Asset Management (MAM) platform, can be automated either through the use of the workflow automation engine or through the Media Library workflow editor. According to the user permissions, the workflows made in the Media Library workflow editor can even be started from the Explorer on Windows or the Finder on Mac by simply right-clicking an asset and choosing the workflow to be executed.